The Manchester Baby, built by F.C. Williams and Tom Kilburn and operational in June 1948, was the first stored-program electronic computer. The Williams-Kilburn tube memory, pioneered in the Baby, was subsequently adopted in many first-generation computers, including the Princeton IAS machine and the IBM 701. Part 1 of this article provides an overview of the Manchester project and its personnel a...
View full abstract»

The logical design of the 1948 Manchester Baby was virtually identical to a 1946 Princeton design. However, thanks to F.C. Williams' and Tom Kilburn's groundbreaking cathode ray tube (CRT) memory and their innovative engineering, the universal electronic digital computer made its world debut in Manchester. This article reassesses the place of Williams and Kilburn in the history of computing.
View full abstract»

After National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger ordered the National Security Council to adopt computers to improve its information-management capabilities in 1969, it employed the RAND Corporation, which championed its view of White House needs, and project manager Charles Joyce from the Department of Defense, who championed users' needs. The ensuing process illustrates how institutional constrai...
View full abstract»

Computer games were originally tools that let programmers demonstrate their craftsmanship, and firms used them to demystify computer operation and lure new individuals and groups. As computers became widespread, use and attitudes of actors toward games changed. With examples from the Netherlands, this article shows how games in domestic use lost their versatile meanings beyond entertainment.
View full abstract»

Some 15 years ago, I argued in the Annals that the word program entered the vocabulary of computer developers from the ENIAC project. Within the ENIAC, the term referred to the control signal that synchronized and directed the actions of the machine's individual units. "It is convenient in discussing the ENIAC to distinguish between the numerical circuits (which operate on signals representing num...
View full abstract»